The Liverpool-headquartered company behind textile technology designed to help prevent pregnancy stretch marks forming is eyeing an expansion into the US on the back of a crowdfunding campaign, its chief executive has told Insider.
Operating out of the Liverpool Science Park Innovation Centre, Secret Saviours is led by majority shareholder Sophie Hooper; an ex managing director at Saatchi & Saatchi London who has also spent time at the likes of Johnson & Johnson.
The wearable product is made up of revolutionary pads which have been developed to gently grip the skin, diffusing tension across the tummy and making it much harder for stretch marks to tear along their natural route downwards.
It is already being sold through The Hut Group's Lookfantastic.com and BeautyExpert.com, as well as in Myer Australia.
Secret Saviours is now undertaking a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube in a bid to raise £150,000. At the time of writing, £38,060 has been secured with about two weeks left to run.
"The inventors noticed that stretch marks always form at right angles to the body’s natural skin lines," Hooper told Insider. "They suspected that problems stemmed from stresses and strains building up at a specific spot in the dermis, the middle layer of the skin, which is made up of a flexible network of interconnected fibres.
"Having worked out what happens when stretch marks form, our inventors began experimenting with ways to reduce the chance of them spreading."
Hooper said the company had benefitted from "excellent results" in an independently run clinical trial with 70 per cent of ladies not getting stretch marks, with that figure rising to 82 per cent in a consumer trial on the back of further R&D.
"Sales have been strong through our e-commerce platform secretsaviours.com and through Amazon," she added. "We are working towards a launch with Boots at the end of October, a Q1 launch with Terry White Pharmacy in Australia in 900 stores, and with VIP.com, China's third biggest online retailer, in Q2."
Hooper said CrowdCube approached the company as the platform had "good traction fundraising with other mother and baby innovation businesses".
"We need investment to fund stock to be able to grow through Boots, Terry White, VIP.com and into the US in 2019."